Factors Affecting Male Pink Bollworm Moth Catches in Gossyplure Baited Traps

In an experiment conducted in cotton fields at Hissar, Haryana (India) during the year 1978–79, it was observed that the most effective trap for the capture of male pink bolworm moths using sex pheromone "gossyplure" was metal trap in which either rubber stopper or plastic tube was used as pheromone dispenser and either liquid paraffiIl or cottOl1 seed oil was used as moth sticking material. Maximum moths were captured when the traps were kept at the plant canopy level and at a distance of 60 or 40 metres

Role of acute viral hepatitis as a confounding factor in antituberculosis treatment induced hepatotoxicity

Background & Objective: Drug induced hepatotoxicity (DIH) is an important and commonly encountered adverse effect with antituberculosis (anti-TB) treatment. Acute viral hepatitis (AVH) is an important confounding reason which clinically, biochemically and histologically mimics DIH. Methods: The contributory role of acute viral hepatitis as a confounding factor in patients with normal baseline liver functions who developed acute hepatitis while receiving short-course anti-TB treatment was prospectively studied. The sera of all patients who developed acute hepatitis were analysed for markers for hepatitis A, B, C and E viruses. Results: Viral hepatitis was present in 15 of the 102 (14.7%) patients who developed acute hepatitis while receiving anti-TB treatment with hepatitis E virus being the most common cause Later onset of acute hepatitis [58 (5-133) vs. 26 (3-221) days; P=0.04], large elevations in aspartate aminotransferase (AST) [371 (30-2643) vs. 212 (63-1990 IU/l); P=0.03] and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) [388 (31-2997) vs. 225 (52- 1670 IU/l); P= 0.002] and a longer time for normalization of deranged liver functions [36.7 ± 13.3 vs. 24.5 ± 19.3 days; P=0.02] indicated acute viral hepatitis as the cause of liver function derangement. Interpretation & Conclusion: Our findings showed AVH in 14.7 per cent patients who developed hepatotoxicity while an anti-TB treatment. Therefore, in endemic areas, viral hepatitis should be sought after and excluded in all patients suspected to have DIH before attributing the hepatotoxic effect to the anti-TB drugs

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on vegetable sector and its allies

177-183The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), has created an unanticipated pandemic, that has triggered severe panic among individuals worldwide. In this direction, countries are maximizing their efforts to fight the virus and reduce infection. Vegetables due to the presence of several bioactive compounds could help build and maintain immunity against degenerative diseases and COVID-19. Therefore, sustainable vegetable supply is needed continuously. For this to happen placidly vegetable producer and vegetable sector allies must work in close cooperation with each other. This document deals with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on vegetable sector and its allies

An Evolutionary Reduction Principle for Mutation Rates at Multiple Loci

A model of mutation rate evolution for multiple loci under arbitrary selection is analyzed. Results are obtained using techniques from Karlin (1982) that overcome the weak selection constraints needed for tractability in prior studies of multilocus event models. A multivariate form of the reduction principle is found: reduction results at individual loci combine topologically to produce a surface of mutation rate alterations that are neutral for a new modifier allele. New mutation rates survive if and only if they fall below this surface - a generalization of the hyperplane found by Zhivotovsky et al. (1994) for a multilocus recombination modifier. Increases in mutation rates at some loci may evolve if compensated for by decreases at other loci. The strength of selection on the modifier scales in proportion to the number of germline cell divisions, and increases with the number of loci affected. Loci that do not make a difference to marginal fitnesses at equilibrium are not subject to the reduction principle, and under fine tuning of mutation rates would be expected to have higher mutation rates than loci in mutation-selection balance. Other results include the nonexistence of 'viability analogous, Hardy-Weinberg' modifier polymorphisms under multiplicative mutation, and the sufficiency of average transmission rates to encapsulate the effect of modifier polymorphisms on the transmission of loci under selection. A conjecture is offered regarding situations, like recombination in the presence of mutation, that exhibit departures from the reduction principle. Constraints for tractability are: tight linkage of all loci, initial fixation at the modifier locus, and mutation distributions comprising transition probabilities of reversible Markov chains.Comment: v3: Final corrections. v2: Revised title, reworked and expanded introductory and discussion sections, added corollaries, new results on modifier polymorphisms, minor corrections. 49 pages, 64 reference

Measures of Association for Identifying MicroRNA-mRNA Pairs of Biological Interest

MicroRNAs are a class of small non-protein coding RNAs that play an important role in the regulation of gene expression. Most studies on the identification of microRNA-mRNA pairs utilize the correlation coefficient as a measure of association. The use of correlation coefficient is appropriate if the expression data are available for several conditions and, for a given condition, both microRNA and mRNA expression profiles are obtained from the same set of individuals. However, there are many instances where one of the requirements is not satisfied. Therefore, there is a need for new measures of association to identify the microRNA-mRNA pairs of interest and we present two such measures. The first measure requires expression data for multiple conditions but, for a given condition, the microRNA and mRNA expression may be obtained from different individuals. The new measure, unlike the correlation coefficient, is suitable for analyzing large data sets which are obtained by combining several independent studies on microRNAs and mRNAs. Our second measure is able to handle expression data that correspond to just two conditions but, for a given condition, the microRNA and mRNA expression must be obtained from the same set of individuals. This measure, unlike the correlation coefficient, is appropriate for analyzing data sets with a small number of conditions. We apply our new measures of association to multiple myeloma data sets, which cannot be analyzed using the correlation coefficient, and identify several microRNA-mRNA pairs involved in apoptosis and cell proliferation

Quantification of miRNA-mRNA Interactions

miRNAs are small RNA molecules (′ 22nt) that interact with their corresponding target mRNAs inhibiting the translation of the mRNA into proteins and cleaving the target mRNA. This second effect diminishes the overall expression of the target mRNA. Several miRNA-mRNA relationship databases have been deployed, most of them based on sequence complementarities. However, the number of false positives in these databases is large and they do not overlap completely. Recently, it has been proposed to combine expression measurement from both miRNA and mRNA and sequence based predictions to achieve more accurate relationships. In our work, we use LASSO regression with non-positive constraints to integrate both sources of information. LASSO enforces the sparseness of the solution and the non-positive constraints restrict the search of miRNA targets to those with down-regulation effects on the mRNA expression. We named this method TaLasso (miRNA-Target LASSO)

The Embedding Problem for Markov Models of Nucleotide Substitution

10.1371/journal.pone.0069187PLoS ONE87-POLN

Identification of links between small molecules and miRNAs in human cancers based on transcriptional responses

The use of small molecules to target miRNAs is a new type of therapy for human diseases, particularly cancers. We proposed a novel high-throughput approach to identify the biological links between small molecules and miRNAs in 23 different cancers and constructed the Small Molecule-MiRNA Network (SMirN) for each cancer to systematically analyze the properties of their associations. In each SMirN, we partitioned small molecules (miRNAs) into modules, in which small molecules (miRNAs) were connected with one miRNA (small molecule). Almost all of the miRNA modules comprised miRNAs that had similar target genes and functions or were members of the same miRNA family. Most of the small molecule modules involved compounds with similar chemical structures, modes of action, or drug interactions. These modules can be used to identify drug candidates and new indications for existing drugs. Therefore, our approach is valuable to drug discovery and cancer therapy

Diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive tests to screen for at-risk MASH-An individual participant data meta-analysis

Background & Aims: There is a need to reduce the screen failure rate (SFR) in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) clinical trials (MASH+F2-3; MASH+F4) and identify people with high-risk MASH (MASH+F2-4) in clinical practice. We aimed to evaluate non-invasive tests (NITs) screening approaches for these target conditions. Methods: This was an individual participant data meta-analysis for the performance of NITs against liver biopsy for MASH+F2-4, MASH+F2-3 and MASH+F4. Index tests were the FibroScan-AST (FAST) score, liver stiffness measured using vibration-controlled transient elastography (LSM-VCTE), the fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4) and the NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS). Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) and thresholds including those that achieved 34% SFR were reported. Results: We included 2281 unique cases. The prevalence of MASH+F2-4, MASH+F2-3 and MASH+F4 was 31%, 24% and 7%, respectively. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F2-4 were .78, .75, .68 and .57 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F2-3 were .73, .67, .60, .58 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F4 were .79, .84, .81, .76 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. The sequential combination of FIB-4 and LSM-VCTE for the detection of MASH+F2-3 with threshold of .7 and 3.48, and 5.9 and 20 kPa achieved SFR of 67% and sensitivity of 60%, detecting 15 true positive cases from a theoretical group of 100 participants at the prevalence of 24%. Conclusions: Sequential combinations of NITs do not compromise diagnostic performance and may reduce resource utilisation through the need of fewer LSM-VCTE examinations

Diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive tests to screen for at-risk MASH-An individual participant data meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS There is a need to reduce the screen failure rate (SFR) in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) clinical trials (MASH+F2-3; MASH+F4) and identify people with high-risk MASH (MASH+F2-4) in clinical practice. We aimed to evaluate non-invasive tests (NITs) screening approaches for these target conditions. METHODS This was an individual participant data meta-analysis for the performance of NITs against liver biopsy for MASH+F2-4, MASH+F2-3 and MASH+F4. Index tests were the FibroScan-AST (FAST) score, liver stiffness measured using vibration-controlled transient elastography (LSM-VCTE), the fibrosis-4 score (FIB-4) and the NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS). Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) and thresholds including those that achieved 34% SFR were reported. RESULTS We included 2281 unique cases. The prevalence of MASH+F2-4, MASH+F2-3 and MASH+F4 was 31%, 24% and 7%, respectively. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F2-4 were .78, .75, .68 and .57 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F2-3 were .73, .67, .60, .58 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curves for MASH+F4 were .79, .84, .81, .76 for FAST, LSM-VCTE, FIB-4 and NFS. The sequential combination of FIB-4 and LSM-VCTE for the detection of MASH+F2-3 with threshold of .7 and 3.48, and 5.9 and 20 kPa achieved SFR of 67% and sensitivity of 60%, detecting 15 true positive cases from a theoretical group of 100 participants at the prevalence of 24%. CONCLUSIONS Sequential combinations of NITs do not compromise diagnostic performance and may reduce resource utilisation through the need of fewer LSM-VCTE examinations